We’ve all been there: you fire up your ranking-monitoring tool of choice.
You see a massive change in rankings.
Your heart rate increases.
WTF? Was it something you did? Was it something you didn’t do?
Or was it (eek)… an update to Google’s search algorithm?
There are plenty of free tools out there to help you investigate fluctuations in organic rankings, but until today there’s never been a volatility report that focuses on local rankings.
Why local rankings? Because the algorithm that manages these is completely different to the organic algorithm we all know and fear.
Local ranking factors like proximity, prominence, and relevance are treated in a very different way by Google, so an organic rankings monitor won’t tell you anything pertinent to those all-important local rankings. That’s why we built…
Local RankFlux: Your Free Local Rankings Volatility Report
Local RankFlux is the only early warning system dedicated to fluctuations in local rankings. It’s here to help you see the broader picture of changes to local rankings and show your company or clients that you’re on top of it.
Local RankFlux shows fluctuations in local rankings over the last 7 days
Changes in local rankings can have an immediate impact on visibility, and every time Google tweaks the importance of a ranking factor, many businesses come out as winners and losers.
In order to continue reporting success, you need a tool that gives you the confidence to explain big changes in visibility and suggest strategies to respond to them.
Contrast and compare fluctuations in rankings for up to 26 industries
Local RankFlux offers:
- Last 7 days of scores at a glance
- Industry-level segmentation of fluctuations
- Urgent email alerts or weekly/daily updates
- Permanent record of fluctuation scores (since May 2019)
- Highlights of Twitter buzz around algorithm changes
- Completely free access – no BrightLocal account needed
Urgent email alerts notify you as soon as we detect signs of an update to Google’s local algorithm
How the flux does it work?
Here’s our Head of Marketing, Kristian Bannister with a quick overview:
Where do we get all this fluxing data?
The methodology and mathematics behind our calculations are suitably unwieldy and complex, but in a nutshell we look at changes in local rankings for 26 industries, monitoring 28 keywords per industry. These are looked at across 20 cities, giving us a pool of nearly 15,000 keywords.
The tool then looks at how much the change in ranking for each keyword deviates from the previous day’s, and calculate an overall Local RankFlux score based on this deviation. Here’s what the scores (out of 10) mean:
- 0-3 indicates ‘low’, expected fluctuation (i.e. nothing significant has happened)
- 3.1-6 indicates ‘medium’ fluctuation (i.e. something minor has happened)
- 6.1-10 indicates ‘high’ fluctuation (i.e. something major has happened – likely a local algorithm update)
Okay, we’ll stop making ‘flux’ puns now…
It’s been a long time in the making, but we’re incredibly proud of this new free tool and are excited to see the impact it’ll have on the local search industry. If you find it useful, let the world know using #LocalRankFlux.
Have any feedback, questions or innovative ideas for how to use the data? Don’t keep it to yourself; let us know at @bright_local or drop us an email.
